Here we are. The first day of another era in the history of my blog I write each day in the morning light, or dark depending on the time of the year. I should probably give it more thought, take more time, but this is what I’ve done for the last ten years. I gather my thoughts, put them to paper, then publish. It in the early days it was mostly about nature, my yard, my plants, my gardens. Then I broached the subject of my wife’s dementia and my journey with her. Then came grief, naturally. And eventually they all mixed together into my stew of words, close to a million by last count. And now I find myself admitting another guest to the party.

I’m 78. Old by most standards. But that means I’ve lived a while. And as luck would have it, I mostly paid attention to what was going on around me. Partly because I worked for newspapers, but also because I liked history, and current events were history in the making. I vote. All the time. I’ve missed one or two smaller elections. But once I came of age, I was all in. And now, even at the risk of alienating people, I’m going to talk about it. And this is when it really helps to write for myself, and not really think about my audience. This isn’t about convincing anyone of anything. All I need to do is organize my thoughts and put them down, sharing the process of my viewpoint creation, my journey.

It feels about time. This seems a consequential point in the history of our country. Lots of forces at play. And I feel lucky that I’m no child of a single region, nor did my parents spend a great deal of time imbuing me with their political views. My mom was Catholic, but she died when I was 21, and there went that influence, although, as I’ve noted before, a lot of bible verses resonated strongly with me and probably influenced my political inclination. But for now I’m just going to sit back and see where this takes me and talk about how I feel. At some point, I’ll probably surprise even myself.